copyright/youtube

We put on a fantastic flashmob at a friend’s wedding and want to put it up on youtube or facebook. The music was the original playback of a famous U.S. singer (now deceased) and song from the 80s. The original playback was downloaded from youtube somehow by a computer geek friend. The vocals were then recorded by a bunch of friends but more or less exactly the words of the original song. There was and is no money to be made from the flashmob, it was all for fun, not a business venture in any way. Does anyone know: Is there any chance of copyright issues if it were to be put online? Thanks!

My guess is yes.. Unless you’ve gotten rights to use the music, you’re not legally allowed to use it.

Even though the original artist is deceased, for the most part, music doesn’t become public domain until 70 years (I think) after the artist has passed away. Therefore, someone, somewhere still maintains the rights to this music.

It doesn’t matter what the intention is – or if money is being made, you must have the rights to use it.

To be fair, I’m not 100% certain on all the rules\policies that YouTube has adopted… Anyone else care to chime in?

Lee8 said
Is there any chance of copyright issues if it were to be put online?

The worst thing that could happen to you is that your video would be taken down, but I seriously doubt it would happen. Nowadays copyright holders prefer to make money by displaying ads next to their content. Simply taking it down is not good to anyone. So I say put your video online and share it with your friends. Most likely there’ll be “3d party content match” and ads will be shown by your video, but that’s it.

Thanks for your responses . FlossieWood, what does “acknowledge third party content” mean? A kind of disclaimer that the song belongs to the writers and we have no claim to it?
Truth is, what troubles me is the thought that we could be sued for copyright for using their song and original playback, not that it might be removed from youtube – ie if PatrickAThompson is right!
If Art-of-Sound and FlossieWood are right, then there’s nothing to worry about. Would appreciate more responses from people in the know on the legal side!